About 40 million people in North America suffer from chronic sinusitis according to the US Centers for Disease Control. If you're one of them then you know how discouraging this can be. When I came down with my fifth sinus infection of the '06-'07 winter, I was pretty discouraged for sure - not to mention desperate enough to try anything. Clearly, the antibiotics I used the first four times hadn't done the job.

So when a good friend suggested that sniffing a cup of salt water into my nose would go a long way toward fixing me, instead of calling him loony and wondering if I'd drown, I mixed some salt water and sniffed it into my nose.

It worked; I could immediately breathe more clearly! I felt better - much better, so I kept it up a couple of times a day. Not only was I breathing clearly through my nose for the first time in years, but I stopped getting sinus infections, and I slept deeper, and I snored less (a LOT less), and the habit that cannot be named(nose-picking) spontaneously ceased - forever!

I was stunned that something as simple as flushing salt water through your nose could relieve congestion so fast and effectively, not to mention improve one's quality of life in other ways, too. (And do it naturally - without drugs!) On the other hand, it certainly makes sense that improved breathing would affect many issues. Whatever the case, the time had come to pursue a tutorial in saline nasal irrigation.

I learned that nasal irrigation has been the subject of numerous clinical trials, and the results are well established.As Dr. Blake Papsin and Alison McTavish summarized in Canadian Family Physician in 2003, "Nasal irrigation is a simple, inexpensive treatment that relieves the symptoms of a variety of sinus and nasal conditions, reduces use of medical resources, and could help minimize antibiotic resistance."

I learned that nose rinsing has been around a long time. The neti pot, a gravity-baseddevice for pouring saline into one nostril that flows out the other, was first written about in India over five hundred years ago, and was likely invented many centuries before that. I also learned that in 2005, Dr. Mehmet Oz introduced the neti pot to Oprah Winfrey and millions of her friends in 149 countries.

Today, the neti pot has been joined by dozens of other nasal irrigation devices. Most of these work by pushing saline into the nasal cavity under pressure - usually generated by squeezing a plastic bottle. This technology is effective but primitive, and off-putting for many. And because the irrigant pours out your nose as it exits, you've got to stand over a sink if you don't want to make a mess of things.

In January 2007, inspired by my overwhelmingly positive experience with the therapy, I began to think about how the delivery system could be improved.

Aha Moment

I woke up at about four o'clock on Sunday morning, February 18, 2007, and not likely to fall back to sleep, got up and began tinkering with my new project. Then it hit me; that unexpected eureka experience you read about in novels and see in movies, a rare moment of genuine insight.

My simple realization was that for nasal lavage (lavage = rinsing) to be effective and comfortable and convenient and tidy (i.e., something that could appeal and be accessible to everyone) saline should be pulled through the nasal cavity, not pushed, and that this could be achieved by applying gentle suction. In short, pull don't push; apply suction not pressure; use a vacuum not a broom!

The Navage Nasal Hygiene System was born out of that idea, and thus began a seven-year journey to bring modern technology to a time-proven therapy. The idea was singular, but its fulfillment is the extraordinary work of a talented team of doctors, designers, and engineers who persevered to the finish line. And now it's available so that you can breathe better now, and breathe better forever!

RhinoSystems, Inc.

RhinoSystems, Inc. (RSI) is the developer of the Navage Nasal Hygiene System, the world's first handheld nasal irrigator that uses gentle suction. Established in 2007, RSI focuses on bringing innovative products to the market for saline nasal irrigation. RSI owns over two dozen issued patents and numerous trademarks worldwide. RSI is headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio.

RSI is committed to maintaining the highest quality standards so that our products meet the needs of our customers and the expectations of our stakeholders. RSI is certified to ISO 13485:2003, the internationally recognized standard for medical device manufacturing.